Overview and Client Background
Cambria County Transit Authority (CamTran), which began operating in 1976, provides rural and urban transit to Cambria County, Pennsylvania. By utilizing Optibus’ Scheduling, Planning, and Rostering software, CamTran achieved significant improvements and results including:
- Clearer data management
- Quicker reaction speeds to evolving scheduling scenarios
- Static and realtime GTFS certifications in just one year
This case study focuses on Breanna McConell, the transportation planner responsible for creating CamTran’s timetables and schedules, and her experience using Optibus’ software.
Challenge & Impact #1: Data Access for Efficient Scheduling
CamTran faced significant limitations with their previous planning software, which restricted access to their own data. Bre says she “didn’t have complete access to anything” and was unable to visualize data or fully access necessary information.
Making changes involved sending spreadsheets for every adjustment to an external specialist. This complex process, with reviews that could take weeks, delayed service changes and led to transparency issues, making fleet management and information tracking difficult.
With Optibus implemented, Bre says this process now “literally takes minutes.” She can effortlessly generate multiple scheduling scenarios and make informed decisions that account for layover time and more. Optibus’ software has given her a new level of control.
“I absolutely love it,” says Bre.
CamTran is now making scheduling changes quickly and efficiently, which boosted drivers’ satisfaction at work and created more dynamic, responsive services for passengers.
“Having the ability to work better, faster, more efficiently – it means quicker turnaround time, which then gives the operators more faith in our abilities because they’re not waiting around for a change. They’re not waiting around for something to happen. It happens relatively fast. That hopefully gives them more faith in the company, our ability, and the software,” says Bre.
Challenge & Impact #2: GTFS Certification
For more than ten years, CamTran struggled to achieve GTFS certification, which is necessary for publishing service information for passengers on Google Maps. With Optibus, they achieved this certification within just one year.
Obtaining GTFS certification requires producing a file free of errors or warnings in a GTFS validator. Using Optibus, CamTran was able to identify file deployment issues and then produce and maintain error-free GTFS files. This enabled CamTran to secure both static certification and realtime certification.
Through the integration between Optibus Scheduling and CamTran’s CAD/AVL system, CamTran can now produce both static and realtime GTFS. Static GTFS provides riders with the planned schedule, while realtime GTFS updates passengers with actual bus arrival times based on their location. As a result, passengers benefit from up-to-date and reliable service information through Google Trip Planner.
Challenge & Impact #3: Network Redesign
With full visibility and control over its data, CamTran is well positioned to conduct a comprehensive network redesign, using Optibus’ rapid scenario-generation capabilities to explore multiple possibilities.
“We are completely reevaluating our entire system from top to bottom… once we start actually redesigning it, what our future system is going to look like, [we can do it] all in one complete view instead of needing to look at maybe four or five plus reports separately. We can just layer it into one and see it in one big, beautiful picture,” says Bre.
The ability to create and compare different layers and analyze impact enhances Bre’s capacity to conduct in-depth evaluations for CamTran’s network redesign. Bre uses Optibus to visualize stop locations alongside population density, which is crucial for prioritizing high-usage bus stops and reallocating resources from underutilized ones. Accessing multiple perspectives in a single view gives CamTran clear insight into the state of their current service network. It also enables them to plan for the future in a unified, easy-to-understand format, replacing the need for multiple
reports.
According to Bre, “the easy to understand, easy to view capability in Optibus” enhanced her collaboration with operators, dispatchers, and management by presenting information in a clear and intuitive way.
Conclusion
The transition to Optibus empowered CamTran to better control its data, rapidly analyze multiple service scenarios and their impact, and secure GTFS certification within a year. Bre and her team now have the collaborative, strategic decision-making tools needed to ensure a meaningful network redesign and a better passenger experience.
- Achieved static and realtime GTFS certification within one year after trying for ten years before using Optibus
- Impact-driven network redesign using Optibus’ rapid scenario generation
- Improved data access and management, enabling schedule tracking and decision-making
- Replaced multiple reports with multi-layered, easy-to-understand data visualizations
- Decreased the time required to implement schedule updates from days to minutes
- Public transportation agency
- Products: Planning, Scheduling, Rostering